FISH FACTOR: Fish and Game could faces state fund cutsA nearly $12 million cut in state funds is on tap for the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game if state policy makers have their way. That was one early outcome of legislative House finance subcommittee meetings last week, as they wrapped up the first step in a budget process that will see cuts in agencies and programs almost across the board. According to Juneau Resources Weekly, the ADF&G budget reductions cut across a...

Fish Factor: Buyers believe catch shares worth more Right after the yearly halibut catch limits are announced each January, brokers usually are busy with buying and selling and transferring shares of the catch. But it’s been slow going so far, even with slight harvest increases in nearly all Alaska fishing areas for the first time in nearly a decade. The buyers are there — it’s the sellers that are scarce. “There’s less of a rush this year, but there are less quota...

Fish Factor: Indicators point to low salmon pricesLast year was one of the busiest years ever for Alaska brokers who help fishermen buy, sell and trade fishing permits and quota shares. “I was really happy to see such a good mix of permits we were selling – it wasn’t just one thing,” said Olivia Olsen of Alaskan Quota and Permits in Petersburg. “We had a lot of Dungeness crab permits, charter halibut permits, salmon and shrimp permits, sea cucumbers, and then wha...

Fish Factor: Science backs shellfish romance claimsLovers choose lobster as the top Valentine’s Day dish to share with that special someone. Crab legs and shrimp also get the nod as romantic meals on Feb. 14, one of the busiest dining out days for U.S. restaurants. In a national survey by Harris Interactive, chefs called lobster an “exotic delicacy that results in an intimate moment because it is hand-held and shareable.” In fact, respondents called all shellfish...

The day the President caught a dolly at the BuskinIn the late afternoon of August 7, 1944, in the middle of World War II, if you had been standing on Brooklyn Avenue, which ran about where the back of Sutliifs Hardware is now, you could have waved to President Franklin Roosevelt as he drove by in a station wagon. It was Roosevelt’s first visit to an Alaskan town, and the only visit by a sitting president to Kodiak. A few weeks earlier, Roosevelt had boarded the h...

Fish Factor: Fisheries Team compiles top prioritiesThe need for a clear “fish first” policy in Alaska tops the list of priorities compiled by the Fisheries Transition Team for Governor Walker. The group also stated that “fish and fishermen in Alaska are viewed as barriers to development,” and that there is “irreplaceable optimism” that fish can coexist with development at any scale. Fisheries was just one of the topics that 250 Alaskans brainstormed about in 17 te...

Fish Factor: Loading up on sockeyesAlaska seafood marketers are ramping up promotions and bankrolling a $1 global million media blitz to counteract a tough sockeye salmon market. Sockeyes are by far the most valuable salmon catch, often worth two-thirds of the value of Alaska’s entire salmon fishery. But last summer’s unexpected surge of reds left lots of inventory in freezers, and record U.S. imports of competing farmed salmon from Chile and Norwa...

Fish Factor: Increases in snow crab quotaAlaska seafood marketers are facing some strong headwinds heading into 2015, notably, for sockeye salmon and crab. Snow crab is Alaska’s largest crab fishery, underway now in the Bering Sea. The fleet has a slightly increased 61 million pound catch quota; boats also are tapping on a hefty bairdi Tanner crab catch, the larger cousin of snow crab. A 25 percent increase in snow crab, the unexpected 15 million pound T...

Fish Factor: Fishing season heats up in AlaskaSalmon will always be the heart of Alaska’s fisheries, and that’s why most people think of summer as the fishing season. But that’s not the case. The heart of winter is when Alaska’s largest fisheries get underway each year. On Jan. 1, hundreds of boats with hook and line gear or pots begin plying the waters of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska for Pacific cod, rockfish and other groundfish. Then on January 20th t...